Social media promotion, risk perception, and parental support for adolescent girls' HPV vaccination: Taking consideration of future consequences and sexual attitudes as moderators.

Abstract

HPV vaccine hesitancy in Asia is unique compared to western countries. Concerning whether social media promotion about HPV vaccine will be related with parental support for Chinese adolescent girls, we investigated the correlation among social media promotion, risk perception of HPV vaccine and parental support. Through the theoretical lens of Health Action Process Approach model (HAPA), we found that social media promotion could reduce the risk perception of HPV vaccine and promoted parental supportive decision, and risk perception played a mediation role between social media information exposure to vaccine and parental support. Consideration of future consequences has been found to play a moderating role between social media promotion and risk perception, and parents' sexual attitudes moderated the effect of social media promotion on parental support. Implications of the findings are discussed.